


Settle Down

by dutchmoxie



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-15 21:24:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2243994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dutchmoxie/pseuds/dutchmoxie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every night she comes into his tent, to yell and scream and rage - but not too loudly, because God forbid that someone would find her with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Settle Down

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: “for crying out loud, settle down, you know I can’t be found with you” – the 1975

She has taken to wearing her hair down around the camp, waves of golden locks bouncing on her shoulders and brushing her clothes. It is that more than anything else that reminds him that even after almost a year on Earth, she is still the Princess and he is still the killer. She wears the crown, the halo, and he makes the hard calls. He chooses to make the hard calls to keep her safe.

The gold is almost blinding in the light of the slowly setting sun, but it saddens him that he cannot see her blue eyes shine behind the curtain of hair. There is no way to see if she is smiling again – everything is better when she smiles.

When she briefly turns to say something to Raven, he sees it. She is frowning, and he knows. His tent will not be empty when he calls it a night.

Because she knows no other way to deal with her frustrations than to show up at his tent and yell until her voice is hoarse – all the while fighting to make sure that no one knows that the princess dares to visit his tent in the dark. She says she will never be like those other girls, and he knows he can make a liar out of her – she makes a liar of herself every time she watches him undress in the dim lighting of his tent.

At least he can keep her attention like that – it feels like she only visits him to yell and rage, and to pretend she does not stare at his body. She sees his body more than she hears his words. Would she even feel his touch if he dared to reach out?

Damn, he is not this much of a pessimist. He is not even this much of a poet, because even though he knows all the Roman tragedies by heart, he never intended to have a starring role in any of them. He always hoped for a happier ending for him and his sister, even though he knew that was pretty much out of their league.

Now that they’re on the ground, while the day to day life is a lot more terrifying, a happy ending actually seems to be in reach – if Octavia is careful about what she gets up to with that damn Grounder. He is not ready to be an uncle!

Heck, he’s been made into the King, into the father of an entire camp, and he’s not ready for that either – but at least he’s got his Princess by his side. If only at night, when she is ready to show the real Clarke, fears and all. When she’s yelling at him, her voice hoarse and every muscle in her body tensed, that’s when he sees a Clarke no one else does.

He can tell that she is getting more and more on edge as the darkness swallows their camp. People just keep coming to her with their questions about the smallest things, and she just keeps biting back her anger and frustration – just to let it all come out in a giant tirade when she gets him alone.

“No girls tonight?” she always asks when she comes in.

“Just you,” he decides to answer this time.

Clarke has to make sure that the entrance to his tent is entirely closed – God forbid someone would actually see her with him at this hour. They’re supposed to be leading these kids together, and yet she continues to stick to this invisible divide between the two of them, one that broke down when she forgave him, months ago.

“Do you have to be such an ass?” she rolls her eyes at him.

“Pretty much,” he tries to play it cool, shrugging his shoulders.

Shit, if she’s going to continue to make him the bad guy in this, he might as well act like one. Not only do bad guys have more fun, he has a gut feeling that Clarke actually likes him better as a bad boy.

He’s never been the kind of guy to live up to people’s expectations – he is always a good disappointment to the people he knows. But somehow, for some reason, he’s okay with playing a role for Clarke, because he knows that it makes her feel better. She doesn’t share it with anyone, but she feels a lot of pressure being the leader, the person everyone comes to with their little problems. She’s had to make a lot of tough choices, and if Bellamy acts like an asshole, she can still be the good person. The princess.

“So, Princess,” he starts, “what is it this time? I don’t have all night!”

Surely there is some crisis that can actually be solved quite easily just by allowing him to help her out – she so rarely gives him that opportunity now. He still wonders what they did to her in those sterile labs that makes her so determined to hate him again. Before that they were actually making progress – or so he thought.

“Hot date?” Clarke asks in return.

“You seem awfully focused on those girls,” he replies. “Jealous?”

Like a true ass, he makes her so very aware of the way she looks at him these nights, and the way she often tries to keep his tent empty on the nights she visits. Anyone else can fuck whoever they want – it’s Bellamy that she argues with. It matters to her who he is or is not sleeping with, and he thinks that it matters because none of those girls are Clarke Griffin. He’d say yes in a heartbeat if she ever offered.

Maybe that’s the real thing that makes her so scared to depend on him. He could ask for more of her than she’s willing to give him. It has nothing to do with her ability to care for her – she is able to want him, she is just not willing to. She would rather hang around with Finn Collins for a million years than let herself get closer to him.

Damn those Mountain Men and whatever they did to the Princess!

“Can you not do that?” Clarke rolls her eyes at him.

“You brought it up,” he leers, basically taunting her. “I’m great at follow-through.”

If they ever get around to discussing actual camp business, she might actually start listening to his opinions again. Maybe not in the light of day, where everyone can see and hear them – but here in the dark she at least gives him a chance to talk.

“Lucky girls,” there is a hint of longing in her tone.

Or is he just imagining that? Because he wants to hear that in her voice.

“Are you applying for the position?” he simply has to ask.

She keeps bringing up the girls that used to visit his tent – he does not get many visitors now that Clarke keeps him busy most nights – and if she could just admit that she wants more than just talking… The way she looks at him, the way her eyes linger on him, is he just imagining it? Is she jealous or just angry?

The latter is probably the safest option to choose.

“There are real problems to discuss, Bellamy,” the Princess has finally lost her patience with him. “There are so many small injuries that people are not willing to explain, and there have been reports of scouts from some of the Tribes. You know that they won’t let us live in peace forever.”

That is what he’s been saying for weeks now. Looks like the Princess has finally decided to start listening to some of his words. He worries that one day it will be too little, too late. He worries that one day his words will fail to reach her ears and she will lead herself to ruin in her desperate quest to carry everything on her own shoulders. It is tiring to be thus ignored when he has offered his help to her dozens of times. It is exhausting to be refused and made into a dirty secret.

“You know what would make it easier?” he is weary and tired and ready to hide under his furs. “If you actually let me help you in the daylight. I’m not some damn secret advisor you only come to if the others don’t see you!”

His voice is raised, getting louder with each impassioned word. This has gone on too long and at some point they will either be discovered or she will stop visiting him altogether. He does not see a version of events in which she will actually start talking to him in the daylight. The chance of that happening, that has come and gone long ago.

“Will you settle down?” she pleads with him.

“Because you can’t be found here,” his voice is biting, tearing through all the pleasantries and social niceties. “Not with me. Not when you’re the holy Princess and I’m just the wicked King who lets his people get killed. But it’s okay to visit the King at night – he does have surprisingly smart views on his people and he looks pretty damn good taking off his shirt. But still you can’t be found with me.”

Everything is laid out now, and all he has to do is wait for her to leave. If he knows this new Clarke Griffin at all, she will huff and puff and leave him behind without so much as another word. That is just the way things are these days.

“Bellamy,” the one word holds frustration and weariness and everything else.

“Clarke,” he throws it back in her face, mocking her effort with ease.

Then there is silence – this new Clarke simply does not do well with being confronted with the awful truth. It gives him plenty of time to start getting ready for bed. She always enjoys that show, and he is sure that tonight will not be any different, even though she is furious with him. Hell, he thinks that she might enjoy watching him more on the nights that she is preparing to rip him to shreds with her callous dismissal.

So he takes his time shrugging off his jacket, showing the lines of his gun stuck into his waistband. He sneaks peeks at her from the corner of his eyes only to find out that he has her full attention. Now it’s time for a real show.

His shirt is getting worn – they still do not possess a lot of clothing – and he knows that it clings in all the right places. Clarke’s eyes seem glued to his form as he takes his gun and sets it on his makeshift table – no use letting her get distracted by the reality of his need for violence. Her eyes never leave his chest.

It seems that his body is all that she has time for – his talking is dismissed but his body is paid attention to. And it turns out he is a cruel creature after all, because he takes his damn time peeling off his shirt, raising it inch by inch before throwing it over his head in a single fluid motion – knowing that the way his muscles shift when he does that, that has made many a girl sit up and pay attention.

Clarke is no different, for all her claims to the contrary.

“Staying for the show?” he moves his hands to the button on his pants.

“Maybe if you weren’t such an asshole,” Clarke is ready with the rebuff, “I would actually ask you for advice some time.”

That is rich, coming from the girl who hides their allegiance every damn day if others are around. His rudeness, his harshness, that is all mighty convenient when enemies need to be persuaded to give them information. It is almost required of him, but that can only be acknowledged in the dead of night, when the wayward children sleep calmly.

“I know you like me being an asshole,” his grin shows too many teeth. “It makes it easier to ignore me. And you know it turns you on.”

He is crossing so many lines tonight. Maybe he just can’t take this anymore – is this his final stand against the hypocrisy of Miss Clarke Griffin? Maybe he can only admit it out loud in the dark of night, but he loves this girl. That’s the worst part of it. He loves her, and sometimes she needs him – but only ever cloaked by night.

There are no happy endings to be found here, and maybe it is not as damning as his Roman tragedies – he had still hoped for a better lot for them.

“You’re wrong,” is all that Clarke says, finally.

She may deny that to herself – and she will deny it all the way to her grave – but he knows. He knows that her eyes follow him even now, as he finally decides to just continue undressing. His hands are working on his pants – he tries to focus on that so he won’t have to watch her walk away from him again.

“This is exhausting,” the words slip past his lips unbidden, unconsidered.

With his pants hanging open, exposing threadbare underwear, he might not make a very intimidating picture. Well, it’s not as if Clarke takes him seriously when he _is_ fully clothed, so his current state of undress should not make too much of a difference. But he will not let her disregard keep him from speaking his opinion. If it’s just her frazzled mind working on keeping almost eighty people safe, some things might slip through the cracks. And he already has too many deaths bearing on his conscience.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” he gives it one more try. “But I’m tired and I’m just done. Come back when the sun is shining – that is, if you can handle seeing me in the light of day.”

It is a last ditch effort, and a pretty poor one at that. This will not sway her, and while he can tell her eyes return again and again to the opened button on his pants, Clarke Griffin would never let that mean anything. No, this is the end.

“Bellamy,” she tries to get his attention, and he just waits.

In vain, he hopes that he still matters, that his words can still reach her somehow. He dreams of their middle days – after her forgiveness, but before the Mountain Men – and he remembers the fire trying to claim his body as she closed the door on him. It was the right thing to do, and while it seems that the Princess doesn’t give a damn about him, Bellamy knows that she still has not forgiven herself for leaving him behind. Just like he might never forgive himself for leaving her with the Mountain Men, in the white room that killed the Clarke he used to know.

“What?” he barks after minutes of silence.

What isn’t she saying? What is her final speech to him before she finally gives up on him for good? Are there any words for a situation like this one? There probably are plenty of words for this. The real question is: will the princess manage to find the right ones?

“Fuck it,” he hears her say, and he prepares himself to hear the sound of fabric smacking together as Clarke Griffin finally leaves him behind.

Instead there is a hand on his arm, soft to the touch, but still so much stronger than he expected it to be, yanking him into proper position. This leaves them facing each other from a way too small distance. Her blonde curls are within his reach, her eyes looking up at him as if waiting for him to make the next move.

But what move does she want him to make? He is so very aware of the move that he wants to make, running his eyes over the graceful curve of her neck and the slight pout of her lips until he is staring into her eyes, trying to figure out her meaning before he dares to move. With the space of a breath between them, there is nothing left to hide – and yet they do not move.

This feels like a stalemate, with potentially devastating consequences. It is too late for him to make himself heard – she’s long since given up on him, and this just feels like the final nail in his coffin. This feels like the real excuse she’ll use for everyone who is not in this tent. And there is nothing left for him to do about that.

“What is it that you want from me now?” he is bitter, lashing out at her.

“Nothing,” she responds, already stepping away. “There is nothing I want from you.”

Now that he does not take this particular risk, now that he does not play the role she has cast him in, he has lost his value to her. So she leaves, and he wonders if the light of day might change her mind, or if this is truly the end.

b/c/b/c/b/c/b/c/b/c/b/c/b/c/b/c/b/c/b/c/b/c/b/c/b/c/b/c/b/c/b/c/b/c

Lonely nights are no issue for him. He gets more sleep than he’s had in months and it makes him more effective to lead the parameter guards. He sees everything and can respond within the blink of an eye. He’s more alert than he’s ever been – and more lonely than he ever wanted to be.

Octavia is – wherever that Grounder is – just not around to hang out with her pathetic older brother. He can’t blame her, because he’s an asshole to anyone who dares to get on his radar. More than one kid has been yelled at – and he might have made a few of the younger ones cry.

Fuck, how did he turn himself into the asshole? He wouldn’t let Clarke make him be that guy, and now he was turned into the very person he despised just by her absence.

He can never be a proper King if this is how he attempts to rule without his Princess present at his side. And still the Princess doesn’t deign to speak to him.

Sometimes he will feel the hair at the back of his neck stand up – and when he looks up, Clarke is always near, just staring at him pensively. It’s no longer just about the fine figure he cuts in his clothes, because sometimes it is just a quick peek at the way his hair gets into his eyes. Barbers are not a thing on Earth.

The looks, that’s how it starts – or continues, because he cannot disregard her final night in his tent and how things fell apart in the silence. That night felt like an ending but now it seems it was a new beginning.

She stares, and she doesn’t care if he notices or not. No more blushing or a quick turn away from Clarke Griffin – she boldly keeps staring until he is the one who cannot stand it any longer. Her eyes burn him, heating the slow kindling flame inside his body. His feelings for her have not changed – but it seems that she is different. She is neither the old Clarke Griffin who first set foot on earth, but she is also different from the woman who was in his tent just days ago. And he doesn’t know where he stands.

But he cannot be the first to crack, so he does not comment on the change – by all accounts she still has not publicly acknowledged his presence. He tries to act like nothing about them has changed, because by all appearances, nothing has.

None of the kids remark on the looks – not even normally observant Jasper manages to see anything different going on between Bellamy and Clarke. Life at the camp goes on as usual – except for one thing.

Now that Clarke has realized nobody actually notices her lingering looks in Bellamy’s direction, she is getting bolder about her intentions. Glances last longer and longer until one day when she walks past him, her fingers stroke his arm in passing. The touch is so light that he spends seconds, maybe even minutes, figuring out if it was all in his mind, but he eventually realizes that it did happen.

When he turns to watch her walk away, there is a teasing smirk playing at the corners of her lips. She knows very well what she is doing, taunting him like that, and it appears that she is enjoying every minute of it. She may not be speaking to him with words, but she is doing plenty of speaking with her body.

A touch of the arm turns into more, with only a few weeks going by before she dares to sneak a finger or two under the fabric of his shirt, and only days for her to get comfortable smacking his ass as she passes him by.

The first time her hand actually went there, it was like he’d just been touched by a live wire. His body reacted to her teasing touch by stilling completely – that is, until he realizes just what she was doing, and he turns around in shock. There is not a single tell on her face; there is nothing that would reveal to anyone the kind of game she is playing with him. She isn’t smirking or smiling, or even looking startled at her own courage. Her face is carefully blank.

This is not the Princess he knows – that is the Princess who was in his tent that last night, the one who dared him to make a move while she got too close for comfort. And he has no idea how to deal with this Princess. He just doesn’t know what she wants from him – well, he knows that she wants him to make a move, but he does not know if that is genuine or if that move might be the final nail in the coffin she has started to build for him. That is what makes him so hesitant to act. He wants, he wants so much, but he cannot let himself be ruled by that.

It is too risky when the possibility of it being a trap is so great.

He never thought that Clarke would be the kind of person who lays traps like that, but the thing is; he just does not know who she is anymore. She has changed so much in those weeks with the Mountain Men – he should have gotten her out of there the second he found out about her being imprisoned.

That is the day he decides that it is his turn to confront her in her tent – before her public grabbing gets any more indecent. Hell, there are children present, and also, he just does not want to know how far she would take this in public. In the privacy of either of their tents, well, that’s a whole other story.

So he makes his way to her tent – only two tents away from his – in broad daylight, with his head held high. Clarke may prefer to hide under the cover of moonlight and silence, but he is going to be braver than that. At least, he’ll try.

The kids may glance at him, but the stares are much fewer than he thought they would be. No one is yelling or making stupid jokes about Mom and Dad making up. The kids just take it as a normal part of their routine. Or at least they are not willing to disrupt whatever is happening here. The fabric of his tent is not that thick, after all.

Bellamy knows that some people must have heard the fighting – and gossip is a prime source of entertainment around camp still. He assumes that just about everyone knows, and no one dares to talk to him or Clarke about it for fear they’d explode. It’s bad that the kids are so scared of him again, but right now he can’t seem to worry too much about that (a little fear is good for them anyway – keeps them sharp).

Right now, he just needs to figure out what Clarke is up to.

“So, what’s next?” he manages to find a decent opening line. “Need something from my front pocket, maybe? I’m sure that won’t traumatize the kids.”

When imagining that titillating scenario, he has to pretend he is completely focused on the map Clarke has up on her makeshift table. There is not one part of him that stares at the curves of her body as she slowly rights herself from her previous position – leaning over the table, as if she’d been waiting for his visit, staying in that exact position because she somehow knows the kind of effect that she has on him.

Damn it, how does she know about that?

“Not so fun when you’re not the one in control?” Clarke asks, baffling him.

“What?” he takes the opportunity to step further into her tent.

That also gives him some time to figure out just what she is talking about. How has he ever been in control in any part of their twisted relationship? She’s been the one calling the shots, coming to him on her terms and on her terms only. All he could do was wait and hope she would show up during the night. All that he could do during the day was look at her from the corner of his eye and hope she would not notice.

“The tables have turned,” she grins in a way that only serves to turn him on more.

“Really?” he remains skeptical. “I don’t recall me grabbing your ass in order to make you show up at my tent. I kept my damn hands to myself.”

It sounds more like a protest against her actions than he intends it to, but he is not content to be her little pet, wrapped around her damn finger. He is not content to be strung along like her little puppet. If she wants him, she can damn well have him – but as equals. Always as equals, and together in the light, not just the dark.

“As if you have any objections to my hands on you,” Clarke is quick to reply.

“Of course not,” he agrees with her and watches her shock. “And since you’ve figured me out, I’m going to be very clear. I want you – you know I do. But I also want to be your damn equal, and not your dirty secret you only visit at night.”

Well, he’s said this before, and she didn’t listen then. He has no idea if there is anything that could make her listen to him now. But he will keep trying like the fool he is, pushing his rock up the hill during the day now as well. Every damn day it’s the same old story – but his stubbornness knows no end. Sadly, neither does hers.

“That was not my intention,” she is ever the diplomat.

What is it then? He can’t think of any other reason than that she just does not want to be seen associating with the villain of the piece, the murderer who cost over three hundred people their lives.

“So why the secrecy?” he figures that he deserves to know.

“Because you’re the only damn person here who lets me be myself,” she sighs as if the secret is being torn from her lungs. “Everyone expects me to be the leader, to make all the right decisions at all the right times. I’m the doctor. I’m the healer. I have to fix things. I have to fix everything. And you just tell me I’m wrong, or you just let me rant like an idiot. You let me be vulnerable.”

Wait, what? She is not actually embarrassed of him?

“Huh?” he is left standing in front of her, undoubtedly looking like a fool.

“For crying out loud,” Clarke rolls her eyes at him so hard he is worried about her for a second. “I’m opening up to you, touching you, and all you can do is argue about it.”

So if she isn’t actually angry with him, and if she does not mind being seen with him – why is she touching him secretly? What is up with that?

“I can strip if you want,” he sighs. “That’s what usually happens when we get into it.”

The way she blushes just the tiniest bit at his offer makes him think that maybe there is hope for them to do more than just mend fences. Maybe Clarke is actually interested in his body – and maybe in the actual person as well. Or so he hopes.

“How about we kiss first?” Clarke is quick to reply. “Just to see if that works out.”

She is actually teasing him, stepping in closer until they are recreating the scene from his tent just weeks ago. There is barely a hair’s breadth between their bodies and she is looking up at him so impatiently. Once again she is waiting for him to make the first move, but this time that move is not only wanted, but also actively encouraged. There will be no nasty repercussions if he just dares to go for it.

“As you wish, Princess,” he finally decides that they’ve waited long enough.

With no more patience for their little waiting game, he cups her face with both hands and leans in. And the minute her soft lips touch his, he is lost. Her taste is sweeter than he imagined, her hands more eager to make him shrug off his jacket. As she pushes the fabric down his arms and onto the floor, he figures out just how to make sure his possessive streak does not go by unnoticed.

There is this spot, right where her neck goes into the curve of her shoulder, that is just begging for him to put his mouth on it. And since he has never been the kind of man who could deny himself this much, he just nips at it. At least, at first, because Clarke lets out this whimper that makes him want to close up this damn tent and not let her out of it for the next few weeks. Until he’s explored every inch of her.

The kids will just have to fend for themselves, he decides as he leaves his mark on her skin, sucking and biting and laving until his brand is there to stay. She might kill him for this later – but damn is it worth it.

“Bellamy,” she almost moans as she pulls him closer.

“Settle down,” he teases, a smug grin threatening to take over his face. “You know I can’t be found here with you.”

As she socks him in the shoulder – and it actually kind of hurts – he knows that things are finally right again. She is smiling, his hands tangled in her tarnished halo as they kiss once more.


End file.
